How it all began...
- Born in Kosciusko, Mississippi on January 19th, 1954.
- Born to an unmarried teenager couple, who left her to be raised by her grandmother.
- She had lived very poor, and claims to have had to dress in potato sacks, in which she was bullied heavily for during her childhood.
- She was then shipped off to her strict father’s house in Milwaukee at age 7.
- Oprah was left often with her babysitter 19 year old cousin, who began sexually harassing her at age 9. A few years later, the sexual assaults continued by her uncle as well as a family friend, but she kept silent about it.
- At 14, Oprah found out she had been pregnant, which she hid from her parents until the 7th month. She delivered her baby boy 2 months early, causing him to die 2 weeks into his birth.
- Oprah became a troubled teen who had spent too much of her mother’s money, and had been going out with boys almost every night.
- She claims to have been inspired to become better at the age of 16, in which she became an honor student and got her life back of track.
- After finding out Oprah had been going for a television broadcasting career path, none of her family members had been surprised, as it was expected since she had started talking as a baby.
- Oprah got her first television part-time job in her senior year of high school at WVOL, a black radio station.
- She then went on to get a job at AM Radio, which had last place ratings at the time. 3 months after Oprah took over the show, the ratings went up dramatically.
- She was then offered her own talk show on a show called ‘At The Movies’, which they renamed to The Oprah Winfrey Show.
“I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes.”
-Oprah Winfrey